Another match off frustrates Quakers

Darlington boss Martin Gray had no qualms with the decision to call off yesterday's game at Kendal Town - a day when another opportunity to close in on the promotion pack was lost to the weather.

After heavy rain fell in Cumbria and with more forecast before kick-off, referee Bernard Law postponed the match due to a waterlogged pitch only an hour before the scheduled 3pm start.

Some fans were already inside the ground and they were offered refunds, although a tweet on Kendal's Twitter account yesterday afternoon suggested that Law made the wrong decision.

The tweet read: "The pitch was fine by 3pm, just sorry the ref made the early call for it to be off."

Gray had few complaints and said: "Both teams wanted to play the game, but the weather was against us.

"From 12 o'clock onwards the conditions deteriorated. There was just too much surface water and as much as we wanted the game on, there was just too much water coming out of the sky."

Following the Boxing Day home game with Wakefield, the match became Darlington's second postponement inside a week and neither game has been rearranged yet.

Quakers' fingers are now crossed that this Saturday's match at Heritage Park against Clitheroe gets the go-ahead.

Bishop Auckland are due to play at home tomorrow evening and there is more rain forecast.

Gray added: "The forecast is not good. All we can do is be positive and prepare correctly. It's frustrating because we were training on New Year's Eve night, we'll be in again on Thursday so we're keeping everything crossed that we'll get a game on.

"The last thing we want is to lose too many games and get caught up with a backlog at the end of the season."

Having taken one point over the traditionally busy festive fixtures, last Saturday's 2-2 draw with Salford represents Quakers' only point.

Gray added: "Before the Christmas period we looked at the games coming up and set a target of what we wanted to try and do.

"We've lost two of those games to the weather and drawn one. So that plan is out of the window."

Yesterday's game being off continues Quakers' unwanted tradition of not playing on January 1. They have played on only four of last 22 New Year's Days.

Most other matches in the Evo-Stik First Division were also postponed, but Curzon Ashton's 2-1 win over Mossley means they return to the top and are now nine points clear of Quakers with a game in hand.